Academics like to approach the issue of exclusion by developing guides, tools, and playbooks. But are evaluation tools useful for promoting inclusive design in the built environment? Perhaps. From the Inclusive Design Team in the UK comes a post-occupancy evaluation tool. That is, a tool to find out if the design actually works.Existing post occupancy tools usually focus on the performance of the building itself. For example, energy and sustainability measures. Very few measure the building holistically or from a universal design approach. An article by Zallio and Clarkson lists the many evaluation tools available internationally. It explains the methods used in the research process. Participants for the workshops in the study were drawn from the ranks of built environment professionals. These participants were deemed to have experience in inclusive design. The process for developing the tool included an element of education for participants and eventually the users of the audit tool. The audit takes a snapshot of the building, with its occupants, and offers insights about inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA).The goal of the tool is to provide meaningful information to improve well-being, comfort, and inclusion. It does this by highlighting the points of exclusion and the pain points experienced by users. The title of the article is, The inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility audit. A post-occupancy evaluation method to help design the buildings of tomorrow. It’s by Matteo Zallio and P. John Clarkson from the Inclusive Design Team at the University of Cambridge. It’s open access and a relatively easy read for an academic text.
The key points in the article are:
Inclusive Design is not widely adopted in architectural design practice.
There is a scarcity of post-occupancy evaluation methods on inclusion and accessibility.
Mapping the building occupant’s perception of inclusion and accessibility is key to designing inclusively.
Mixed method evaluation can help professionals to understand points of exclusion in the building.
The IDEA audit helps to understand people’s perception of inclusion and accessibility.
From the abstract
There is a general lack of awareness about Inclusive Design among building industry professionals. This is partly due to the scarcity of available tools to evaluate occupancy feedback on inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility. How can we implement an evaluation tool that works for the building industry? This study aims to inform the development of a post-occupancy method to evaluate Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) in the built environment. With the IDEA audit, researchers, building owners, design teams, developers, facility managers, tenants, and organisation leaders can achieve a baseline of understanding of what people feel in regard to inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility. They can clearly identify pockets of inconsistency and use data to decide how to address challenges and points of exclusion.Note: Unlike many other countries that use the UN term ‘universal design’, organisations and researchers in the UK have maintained their ‘brand’ of ‘inclusive design’. However, these terms mean the same thing – the goal of creating an inclusive world.
Older supermarket shoppers need a positive attitude from employees, functional shopping trolleys, and appropriate placement of products on shelves. Retail stores are public space and they should look good and be functional. Therefore a universal design approach can prevent shopping malls from being ageist.
Key design elements are: seamless entry, easy to use shopping trolleys, finding and reaching products, reading product contents and price tags, and a smooth payment process.
Apart from helpful staff and functional equipment, there are other elements to consider.
Circulation systems and spaces: ramps, elevators, escalators, hallways and corridors
Entering and exiting: identifying and approaching entrances and exits and moving through them easily
Wayfinding: Graphical text, pictograms, maps, photos, diagrams, obvious paths of travel, nodes, edges, zones and districts
Obtaining products and services: service desks waiting areas and shops
Public amenities: toilets and seating
Ambient conditions: noise control, non-glare lighting, adequate temperature and humidity
A paper titled, Design Failure in Indoor Shopping Structures: Unconscious Ageism and Inclusive Interior Design in Istanbul explains more. The authors use the 7 principles of universal design as a guide and add another 4. The additional four principles are related to aesthetics, social participation, sustainability and equity. They also found that toilets and seating within supermarkets could do much to improve the shopping experience for older people.
As older adults’ need for toilets increases, the time spent in the supermarket declines. So they choose medium or small-sized supermarkets within walking distance of home.
Age inclusive shopping mall design
A 2024 article from the Netherlands continues the story of shopping mall design and older people. The term “the elderly” is used throughout, which is not the preferred term in Australia.
Good controlled lighting, reduced background noise, warmer temperatures, clear pathways with good lines of sight are essential. Shopping is for many older people, an enjoyable and meaningful activity.
Neighbourhood shopping malls are often preferred for daily needs. Larger urban malls tend to attract younger generations and leisure shoppers. A literature review revealed one quarter of older peoples’ shopping is done online. Electronics was the most popular category
The literature often portrays older people as fragile and facing significant challenges. This is a one-sided view. Interviews with older people reveal a diverse reality as the ageing process is an individual experience.
Shopping mall design must account for practicality, individual preferences, a range of functions, spatial arrangements. Design solutions should also aim to create shopping centres that foster social interaction and physical activity.
Designing with people with disability in mind results in greater convenience for everyone. That’s why we need businesses to think about inclusive retail experiences and strategies.
The Australian Network on Disability, and Design for Dignity produced an excellent resource for retail outlet designers. The key is for designers and retail outlets to understand the level of their missed business by ignoring population diversity. Graphs and statistics are used to highlight the lost opportunities.
Guides for retailers
The guide is aimed at retail business owners, service providers, shopping centre owners and managers, designers, builders and certifiers. There is also a Design for Dignity microsite with the information in a web-based format with more detail.
The business of age-friendly
Many businesses are not sure how to expand their customer base to include older people and people with disability. Utilising a checklist is one way to start thinking about it. Several organisations have produced checklists and other information to help businesses understand what they can do. Much of it costs little or nothing. Here are just three.
COTA TAS has a checklistthat has a rating scale from excellent to needs work. It covers external environments, shop entrances, safety, comfort, and staff training, and much more. It’s nine pages and easy to read.
AgeUK has a more comprehensive document that provides the reasoning behind some of the “Top Tips’. These include telephone interactions, websites, and resolving complaints. The report is based on consumer workshop consultations.
The concepts of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion have evolved from different fields of endeavour and therefore there is no single way to explain them. But the concept of universal design can unify them. Debating the differences between inclusive and universal design does little to progress the cause because essentially, they mean the same thing. We don’t need more research and discussion about meaning, we need action – research on implementation. Checking in with practitioners and their views of designing inclusively is a good start.
The first thing to note is that this paper comes from the UK where the term “inclusive” is preferred. Most countries use the term “universal” in keeping with the United Nations terminology. However, many writers in the UK like to differentiate between the two words.
The fact that they had difficulty recruiting participants is revealing in itself. Thirty organisations were approached and only 6 agreed to participate. However, this small group provided some useful insights.
The author makes the comment that designing inclusively is an approach to design, which it is, rather than an achievable goal. This is one reason Steinfeld and Maisel developed the 8 Goals of Universal Design. It’s also why universal design practitioners understand you start with principles and create the practical. It’s not a checklist.
Consequently, attempting to delineate differences in inclusive design and universal design is counter-productive. The following quote can be applied to inclusive design, design-for-all, human-centred design and universal design. We are in the era of co-design and continuous improvement. The concept of universal design has evolved since the 1990s
” Inclusion can be viewed as a continually evolving concept addressed incrementally from one project to the next as expertise develops and advancements continue.”
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From the conclusion
“Their insights provided an up-to-date account of inclusive architectural and design practices. Still, their perspectives were not always aligned. This is expected as each person holds different framings and object worlds during a project. For instance, it was expressed that a single mainstream design suitable to every person was not realistic.”
Participants said they prefer bespoke designs, arguing that it is better to design for the individual rather than attend to the mass market with one design. Participants also disliked the lack of quantifiable information.
Universal or bespoke?
Bespoke designs are good where the individual has specific requirements, such as Specialist Disability Housing, and assistive devices. Bespoke makes it easier for the designer because the individual can describe what they want. And sometimes this is necessary. But there are many more places, spaces, services and products that have universal benefit if designed with a universal design approach.
From the abstract
The concept of inclusion in design is increasingly well known and often recognizes value in a greater diversity of people. Still, uptake is said to be limited in practice. The theoretical landscape provides several definitions and concerns, but they are often paradoxical. Rather than disentangle theory, this research turns to practitioners who design inclusively.
This research explores the ways people advocate for inclusion in design projects, prevailing aspects in the negotiations within multi-stakeholder projects, the motivations and mindsets that drive these aspects, and the opportunities they create for the improved uptake of inclusion.
These explorations highlight the value of including a more diverse group of individuals in the negotiations of a design project. Conflicting perspectives on effective uptake prevail in both practice and theory.
Melbourne is one of the most ‘liveable’ cities in the world and the Victorian Government wants to keep it that way. But Melbourne can’t be truly liveable if it isn’t inclusive and accessible for all. Infrastructure projects, buildings, open space, and transportation need to link together seamlessly.
Melbourne has done some good work. Retrofitting tactile footpath indicators and Auslan-interpreted performances are a start. But steep ramps at railway stations are still a problem and Federation Square has a multitude of stairs and rough tiles. An article in the Smart Cities Library says that developers are not on the same page as the Victorian Government.
A report from the University of Melbourne looks at some of the issues for people with disability. Academics worked with City of Melbourne staff and disability advocates to brainstorm ideas that would work. They assessed these ideas to see which were the most important and feasible.
Transportation was the key issue across all disability types, and issues with footpaths were high on the list. This links with another report about Victoria’s Public Transport Journey Planner.
Transportation is key
Victoria’sPublic Transport Journey Planner enables travellers to plan ahead for their journey. But does it work for wheelchair users?
Three case studies of train stations in suburban Melbourne show that in spite of a policy aim of going beyond the Transport Standards to take a whole of journey approach, there is some way to go when it comes to full accessibility.
A nicely written report with a detailed methodology that can be used as the basis of further studies across Australia. The title is: “Does information from Public Transport Victoria’s Journey Planner align with real life accessibility for people in wheelchairs?” Perhaps another case of bureaucrats not actually knowing what constitutes accessibility? Sometimes it is more than “access”.
Melbourne published their Transport Strategy 2030 which has updated information. There’s a lot about bikes but not much about inclusion and accessibility.
The problem with standards for accessible places and spaces is they don’t keep up with current thinking. Consequently there are no standards for the neuro inclusive city.
In Australia, standards focus on mobility, vision and hearing. Consequently they don’t cover invisible disabilities or health conditions. That’s why it’s dangerous to think that meeting legislated standards is sufficient to create access and inclusion for everyone.
In the absence of standards, which are based on minimums, we now have a plethora of guidelines. These either focus on a disability, such as Down syndrome, or a built space, such as a playspace. Guidelines are not mandated and so they often disappear into cyber-space or gather dust on a shelf. But that doesn’t stop more attempts at guidelines and design principles.
There is a growing awareness that a significant portion of the population is neurodiverse. This term captures people who appear to have different behaviours and/or have a specific diagnosis such as autism or ADHD. Sensory factors such as noise and crowds, pose barriers for some people who are neurodiverse. However, these factors are rarely considered in urban planning and design. Until now.
Natasha Mickovski tackles the issues in her Master of Architecture thesis. Her thesis is comprehensive with drawings and case studies illustrating her ideas and key points. Of interest is her adaptation of the 7 Principles of Universal Design.
It’s good to see these principles taken as a starting point and adapted to suit this context. To this end, Mickovski presents her Enabling Design Guidelines which are briefly outlined below.
Enabling Design Guidelines
1. Spatial Organization: Spatial organization is an integral part of neurodiverse design. People who are neurodiverse require a continuous and organized loop of circulation. The use of common and repetitive elements provide a sense of order which allows for them to easily navigate through a building. Repetition within the design also promotes a point of predictability.
2. Spatial Character: A variety of types of spaces such as alcoves, nooks, refuges or clusters are essential. The colours, patterns, and textures are also important for creating a sensorial environment.
3. Lighting, Acoustics, Thermal Quality: Dimmed lighting in low-stimulation zones is good for rational decision-making tasks. These spaces also need a high level of acoustic control. Adjust thermal qualities through a high-performance building envelope. Include spaces such as naturally ventilated atriums or outdoor terraces.
4. Ease of Transition: Wide corridors are good transitional zones which can be used for occupational therapy and movement breaks. It is also important to provide enough space within the corridors for programmable seating options.
5. Sensory Grouping: High stimulus zones such as the music room, makerspace, flex space, café, and marketplace should be grouped together. Group together low stimulus zones such as counselling centres, study rooms, reading zones, and studios.
6. Escape / Reset Zones: Retreat areas and alcoves are essential in the overall planning of a neuro-inclusive building. These are important places for people when they feel overwhelmed.
One of the most pressing issues within the built environment is the ever-evolving conversation of accessibility and its relationship to obsolete building standards from the past.
Standards such as the Ontario Building Code and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) provide insufficient solutions to users with invisible disabilities, particularly the underrecognized realm of neurodiversity.
This thesis explores the possibility for a new set of design guidelines, adopting principles to enable the users’ senses and, in turn, create a neuro-inclusive environment. It also presents the design of a neuroinclusive library centre with a secondary urban park to mitigate the challenges neurodivergents experience at both a human and city-wide scale.
By designing a community-oriented project within the already-established arts and cultural hub of downtown Sudbury, this thesis creates a network of inclusive, user-centered, and sensorial design that can begin to decode the issue of accessibility
Spectrum of Accessible Architectures
Another Masters thesis, this one by a Canadian architect, who takes a similar view. The thesis is presented in an attractive format with interesting illustrations. However, the layout is in PDF book format and some fonts are not accessible for all readers.
“Accessibility is a foundational principle in contemporary architecture that strives to ensure the design and construction of buildings, spaces and environments are inclusive and usable by all individuals. Invisible disabilities, in particular, neurological ones, are largely absent from disability discourse.” Image from the thesis.
In the field of architecture, “accessibility” all too often addresses only “physical accessibility.” Consequently, the sensory barriers facing neurodivergent individuals as they navigate the built environment beg to be considered and addressed.
This thesis embraces truly inclusive accessibility via an exploration of sensory perception and its relationship to architectural experience. From this exploration there emerges a neuro-inclusive design methodology that promises to close the gap between the built environment and sensory impairment.
The use of the term “spectrum” refers to the span extending from hyper- to hypo-sensitivity and encapsulates the diversity of sensory ability experienced by the neurodivergent population.
As an architectural approach, the spectrum construct is well-suited to welcoming flexibility and adaptations and holds promise in inclusive architectural design. To showcase the potential of a “spectrum design” methodology in a real-world context, this thesis concludes in an architectural proposal for a neuro-inclusive student centre on Carleton University’s Campus.
Cities are expanding year on year and the design of urban environments needs to cope with this. That means urban planners and designers have to think about both people and planet.
Environmental degradation and population inequalities require a shift in understanding the nature of healthy urbanism. We need policies and decisions that positively shape neighbourhoods and buildings. That’s what Helen Pineo argues in her paper on an urban design and a planning framework.
The WHO and UN are working with property development and urban planning professionals on the topic of healthy urbanism. Pineo notes that not all built environment professionals accept responsibility for safeguarding health and sustainability.
It appears that the architecture profession is divided on this topic. Some say it is not their responsibility and others say it is time for them to act.
Pineo’s article discusses the state of play internationally and reports on her findings. Structural barriers to health and a reliance on “lifestyle choices” is not effective going forward. We need broader solutions, and we need them urgently.
To the extent that it is possible, all design and policy decisions should be inclusive, equitable and sustainable.
The THRIVES Framework
THRIVES is the acronym of Towards Healthy uRbanism: InclusiVe Equitable Sustainable. Pineo presents the Framework as a new way of conceptualising the connection between health and built environments.
There are three core principles, inclusion, equity and sustainability.
The Framework links planet, environment and people.
The title of the article is,Towards healthy urbanism: inclusive, equitable and sustainable (THRIVES) – an urban design and planning framework from theory to praxis. It’s open access.
Abstract
This article promotes a new framework – Towards Healthy uRbanism: InclusiVe Equitable Sustainable (THRIVES) – that extends previous conceptualisations and reorients focus towards the existential threat of environmental breakdown and the social injustice created through inequitable and exclusive urban governance and design processes and outcomes.
The Framework was developed through synthesising knowledge from research and practice, and by testing this new conceptualisation in a participatory workshop. Ongoing research is exploring implementation of the Framework in practice.
If widely adopted, this Framework may contribute towards achieving the goals of sustainable development through a focus on increasing human health and wellbeing in urban development.
What’s next in urban design?
All aspects of urban design and development are undergoing technological change. The pandemic has increased the speed of some changes. For example, online shopping and parcel delivery, working from home and demand for green open space. The University of Oregon’s Urbanism Next Framework draws together key issues in answer to “What’s next for urban design?”
The three page framework lists the forces of change as new mobility, e-commerce, mobility as a service and urban delivery. These impact land use, urban design, building design, transportation, and real estate. The infographic below shows the kind of questions designers and policy-makers need to ask themselves. Click on the image for a better view of the infographic.
The framework poses key questions for the future. For example:
How will e-commerce impact the demand for industrial land?
How do we protect open space under pressure to expand cities?
What will happen to sprawling city footprints when people don’t need to live in cities?
How will the need for fewer parking lots impact urban form?
How can the interactions between pedestrians and vehicles be managed?
Will new mobility reduce the demand for vehicle ownership?
What will draw people to places in the future?
The Framework says all these things matter for equity, health, the environment and the economy. So it is up to designers and policy makers to remember to take a universal design approach and follow co-design processes.
From the introduction:
“One of the key challenges cities face is understanding the range of areas that are being affected or will be affected by emerging technologies, and how these areas are related. The Urbanism Next Framework organizes impacts based on five key areas— land use, urban design, building design, transportation, and real estate—and relates those to the implications they have on equity, health and safety, the environment, and the economy. It then considers what we should do to ensure that emerging technologies help communities achieve their goals.
Age-friendly communities where people of all ages live, work and play could be the way of the future. That means the desirability of age-segregated living could be on the way out. Many people will live 30 years after the age of 65 years. By 2030 all baby boomers will have turned 65 and Gen X will be joining the older cohort. It’s time to retire the retirement village concept according to an article in The Conversation. This is based on feedback from older people in a Longevity By Design Challenge. This means we have to re-think the notion of retirement and approaches to urban design.The Design Challenge asked:
How do we best leverage the extra 30 years of life and unleash the social and economic potential of people 65+ to contribute to Australia’s prosperity?
Sixteen cross-disciplinary creative teams considered longevity in the context of buildings and neighbourhoods. Together the participants concluded that design for older people is inclusive design. No matter how old you are you still want the same things for a good life. That means autonomy and choice, purpose, good health and financial security.The title of the article is, Retire the retirement village – the wall and what’s behind it is so 2020,and explains how the challenge was run and some of the findings. Key points emerging from the challenge were inclusive infrastructure, people of all ages together, and a mobility “ecosystem” made up of different types of transport options. The underpinning principles turned out to be age-friendly communities, something the World Health Organizationhas promoted for more than ten years.
Boomers are over them
The ABC also reported on the Design Challenge and how to prepare and adapt Australian cities to capitalise on our longevity bonus. It seems walled and gated age-segregated enclaves might have had their day. Instead, the future might hold more age-inclusive neighbourhoods where older people continue to contribute into late age. So, no more need for doom and gloom about population ageing.As an urban design challenge the design of homes suited for all ages was not included. The ABC article is titled, Retirement villages have had their day: Baby boomers are rethinking retirement. A second Longevity by Design session was held in 2021 with the theme, Feels Like Home. This one was focused on aged care and the key points are in the video below.
Urban planning for population longevity
Urban designers are potential champions for improvements for population ageing. That is a key theme in an article that proposes ways for helping older people stay put in their home, and if not, in their community. The article discusses current innovations to make neighbourhoods and homes more supportive both physically and socially. These include: enriching neighbourhoods, providing collective services, building all-age neighbourhoods, creating purpose-built supportive housing.The title of the article is, “Improving housing and neighborhoods for the vulnerable: older people, small households, urban design, and planning”. Open access available from SpringerLink, or via ResearchGate.
From the abstract
Currently preferences and policies aim to help older people to stay in their existing homes. However, the majority of homes in the U.S. and many other countries are not designed to support advanced old age. Also, they are not located to easily provide support and services. The paper examines the existing range of innovations to make neighbourhoods and homes more supportive, physically, socially, and in terms of services. These include: enriching neighbourhoods, providing collective services, building all-age neighbourhoods, creating purpose-built supportive housing, developing small scale intergenerational models, and engaging mobility, delivery, and communications innovations.
If there was an assessment tool for access and inclusion, would this encourage designers to think about population diversity in their designs? If the answer is ‘yes’ then this will be a step forward. But would such a tool become yet another checklist for designers? But perhaps a simple framework to understand universal design would be useful for design and evaluation.
Erica Isa Mosca and Stefano Capolongo embarked on a research study to find such a framework. Their first paper was published in 2018. It is titled, Towards a Universal Design Evaluation for Assessing the Performance of the Built Environment. They concluded that the involvement of users as well as methods such as checklists were needed for the next step.
The next step was a literature review. The researchers’ quest was to find ways to provide design information to architects so that they could go beyond access standards. The literature review is titled, Inspiring architects in the application of Design-for-All: Knowledge transfer methods and tools.
The researchers found four criteria which were critical for translating user needs into design strategies. The diagram below shows the four criteria. Using these criteria, the researchers developed an evaluation framework.
The final stage of the research project produced a useful framework for designers. This framework is about performance and assessing the built environment beyond access codes. The framework aligns with the current universal design thinking by including the concepts of co-design. The frameworkis shown in the diagram below.
Four generationsThere is much talk about population ageing but not much ‘doing’. Urban design is still stuck in age segmentation mode – separate places for children and older people. For example, playgrounds for children and senior citizen centres and ‘homes’ for older people. What we need is more multigenerational planning using universal design principles.Playgrounds with exercise equipment for “seniors” is the new thing. But grandparents have been taking children to playgrounds since they were invented. As it turns out, small children like the exercise equipment – it’s adventure play to them! But not all places meet the needs of both young and old. Planners need to simultaneously consider the different needs of young and old in future projects. That’s the advice of a briefing paper on Multigenerational Planning. Key issues are mobility and access to services, housing affordability, walkability, and density. Younger and older generations share similar safety risks, especially as pedestrians. Parents fear of crime is for their children and their own parents.
What can planners do?
Cross-generational collaboration is a good start, but it also has to consider other population dimensions. Migrants, people with disability, gender identity, and social and cultural inclusion. The key points in the briefing paper are:Keypoint 1: Multigenerational planning creates new coalition building opportunities. Different populations don’t always recognise their reliance on each other. Each age segment defends its narrow position creating missed opportunities.Keypoint 2: Civic participation and engagement is fundamental to multigenerational planning. Children and young people have their own wisdom and older people often have neighbourhood networks. Bringing them together provides better outcomes rather than engaging separately. Keypoint 3: Multigenerational planning users smart growth principles. Programs and smart growth policies that target older people and children provide multigenerational benefits. Keypoint 4: Multigenerational planning applies universal design principles. The guiding philosophy is to design spaces with the ability to meet the changing needs of users. Universal design promotes accessibility, safety, flexibility, functionality, simplicity, and comfort. Housing should meet basic access standards too so that everyone can visit each other at home. There is much more for planners in this fourteen page paper. The title of the briefing paper is, Multigenerational Planning: Using smart growth and universal design to link the needs of children and the ageing population. It was published by the American Planning Association.
Discussion about the benefit of electric versus fossil fuel vehicles will go on for some time. Regardless of the propulsion method, roads take up a lot of our land and environment. Case studies of road closures in favour of pedestrians, are appearing regularly in the literature. The aim of these car-free zones is to give more space to people to move around by walking and cycling. But not everyone can ride a bike or use public transport and this group is probably bigger than we think. Climate activists are keen to reduce the number of cars on our roads whether electric or not. An article on the World Economic Forum website discusses the issues with just one sentence about people with disability. This is going to be a major issue if climate activists forget diversity and disability. There are more people with mobility issues than most people think. Some are not in the disability statistics because they fall under long term health conditions. Then there are non-physical reasons for using cars. Personal vehicles are treated as personal safety devices by people who are physically frail of have a psychosocial condition. That also means they don’t like taxis or car share. People who become blind and have not learned the ways of public transport will use taxis and ride share to drop them exactly where they need to go. Public transport still has gender issues too.
Cars are still mobility devices
With uneven or absent footpaths, older people begin to feel unsafe and then the car becomes a mobility device. When they cannot drive, they prefer a family member to drive them to the shops and medical appointments. That’s partly because they haven’t used public transport in the past and/or don’t feel safe. And cycling with the week’s shopping after picking up a child from school or child care is not an option for many parents.The title of the article is, Are cars an urban design flaw? Cities advance car-free zones. The article presents case studies across Europe in the quest to reduce road space and increase living space. And car-free doesn’t mean pedestrian only – it means cyclists can mingle with pedestrians. For people with hearing or sight impairments, or people unsteady on their feet, this is not helpful. The city of Oslois increasing their car free zones, but are making sure people who need to use a car are catered for.
Academics like to approach the issue of exclusion by developing guides, tools, and playbooks. But are evaluation tools useful for promoting inclusive design in the built environment? Perhaps. From the Inclusive Design Team in the UK comes a post-occupancy evaluation tool. That is, a tool to find out if the design actually works.
Existing post occupancy tools usually focus on the performance of the building itself. For example, energy and sustainability measures. Very few measure the building holistically or from a universal design approach.
An article by Zallio and Clarkson lists the many evaluation tools available internationally. It explains the methods used in the research process. Participants for the workshops in the study were drawn from the ranks of built environment professionals. These participants were deemed to have experience in inclusive design.
The process for developing the tool included an element of education for participants and eventually the users of the audit tool. The audit takes a snapshot of the building, with its occupants, and offers insights about inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA).
The goal of the tool is to provide meaningful information to improve well-being, comfort, and inclusion. It does this by highlighting the points of exclusion and the pain points experienced by users.
The title of the article is, The inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility audit. A post-occupancy evaluation method to help design the buildings of tomorrow. It’s by Matteo Zallio and P. John Clarkson from the Inclusive Design Team at the University of Cambridge. It’s open access and a relatively easy read for an academic text.
Age-friendly communities where people of all ages live, work and play could be the way of the future. That means the desirability of age-segregated living could be on the way out. Many people will live 30 years after the age of 65 years. By 2030 all baby boomers will have turned 65 and Gen X will be joining the older cohort. I
A
Urban designers are potential champions for improvements for population ageing. That is a
Discussion about the benefit of electric versus fossil fuel vehicles will go on for some time. Regardless of the propulsion method, roads take up a lot of our land and environment. Case studies of road closures in favour of pedestrians, are appearing regularly in the literature. The aim of these car-free zones is to give more space to people to move around by walking and cycling. But not everyone can ride a bike or use public transport and this group is probably bigger than we think.